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New 30-storey office tower could replace rickety parkade near Waterfront Station

There are new signs of life for an office tower project first proposed nearly five years ago across the street from Waterfront Station in downtown Vancouver.

A rezoning application to build an office tower at 320 Granville Street, the southeast corner of Granville and Cordova streets where a rickety-looking Go Park parkade structure is located, was previously approved by Vancouver City Council in 2014. However, the 25-storey proposal by Vancouver Whitecaps co-owner Greg Kerfoot and local firm VIA Architecture failed to make the test beyond the Urban Design Panel.

More than a year after Kerfoot sold the parkade site and redevelopment project to Bosa Development Corporation, a new development application with a redesigned tower has been submitted to the City for approval. There are 30 storeys in this design, but the overall floor area of 376,000 square feet is roughly the same as the original proposal.

Designed by New York-based architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, the modified proposal offers are more streamlined designed with “sculpted” flows and curvatures, contrasting sharply with VIA Architecture’s original boxy and angled design.

Some retail space will be allocated on the ground and mezzanine levels while the top floor is designated as a “VIP Office” level. In comparison, an earlier design for the tower proposed a rooftop daycare.

Seven levels of underground parking with 288 spaces will be accessed from the back lane.

The latest iteration of 320 Granville Street joins two other office tower projects on the same city block. A 25-storey office tower is slated for the northwest corner of West Hastings and Seymour Streets at 601 Hastings, and a rezoning application was recently submitted to construct a slim 28-storey office tower adjoined to the historic RBC Building at 625 West Hastings Street – immediately adjacent to the parkade.

Across the street, office towers are also envisioned for Sinclair Centre by the federal government and the ground-level parking lot east of Waterfront Station by commercial developer Cadillac Fairview, where a rejected ‘origami’ design is set to be revised.

Altogether, these projects could add thousands of office jobs within footsteps from the transit services at Waterfront Station. The 320 Granville Street proposal will be reviewed by the Development Permit Board in early-April.

Credit: dailyhive.com

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